It’s supremely thin it has a great keyboard and an innovative trackpad and it has very good security features that don’t require you to pay for features of interest only to enterprise users. HP hits many of the right notes with its EliteBook Folio 1040 G1, but it’s not perfect. PCWorld’s battery-rundown test is admittedly more punishing that what most publishers use, and the Folio did last nearly a full hour longer than Lenovo’s new X1 Carbon, but Acer’s machine ran for nearly six hours, and our reference laptop lasted just over six hours. If you fly overseas a lot, make sure your seat has an AC outlet: The battery in this year’s Folio lasted less than five hours. The Folio actually squeaked past the new X1 Carbon when we ran the PCMark 8 Office benchmark, but the Acer and Dell machines blew the doors off both these other machines, thanks to their Core i7 CPUs. Our 100-point reference system, meanwhile, is a consumer-oriented Dell XPS 15, which features Intel’s powerhouse Core i7-4702HQ. That’s just behind Lenovo’s new X1 Carbon (powered by a very slightly faster Intel Core i5-4300U processor), and a little behind Acer’s TravelMate Pro (which is based on an Intel Core i7-4500U). In this configuration, the Folio 1040 G1 delivered a Notebook WorldBench 9 score of 61. This configuration includes a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip for data encryption, but the Core i5-4200U does not include Intel’s vPro technology (HP offers other EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 configurations with CPUs that do support vPro).īattery life isn’t impressive, but it’s not terrible. Note that I didn’t test either of these features. You (or your IT department) can use HP’s Trust Circles to establish a list of approved contacts who can access critical files on the machine. I’ve found many such scanners to be finicky to program and use, requiring you to swipe your finger at just the right speed, but HP’s was a breeze.Īt a deeper level, HP’s Sure Start technology is designed to protect the Folio’s BIOS from malware attacks, and it provides instant BIOS restoration should the BIOS ever become corrupted. Beyond its Windows login screen, the Folio 1040 G1 provides two ways to authorize access: The aforementioned Smart card slot and a built-in fingerprint scanner. That warm, secure feelingīeefed-up security features are one of the big things that separate enterprise notebooks from their consumer cousins. I appreciated his honesty, which allowed me to move on quickly to a better-informed rep. ![]() One rep admitted he needed to get more up-to-speed on the EliteBook’s security features. The reps picked up right away, spoke clear English, behaved courteously, and answered most of my questions readily-no pregnant pauses while they searched internal knowledge bases. HP offers a full year of 24/7/365 phone support, holidays included. HP touts its “concierge-level” support, and its reps acquitted themselves well in my test calls. Interestingly enough, the Folio delivered a higher PCMark 8 score than the X1 Carbon, despite the Lenovo’s slightly faster CPU and larger SSD. That option provides four USB 3.0 ports, RJ-45, VGA, and audio/video ports, but it costs $149 and weighs 1.7 pounds. HP includes its model F1H90AV Side Dock, which provides RJ45 and VGA ports, or you can pack HP’s complete docking station. That’s in line with the industry’s relentless effort to wring ounces and millimeters out of notebooks. Like many small notebook makers, HP has jettisoned VGA and ethernet ports from the Folio. The solution was to move my fingertips slightly farther apart with that browser. In my experience, it worked fine in Microsoft Word and Google Chrome, but the gesture resulted in a pinch-zoom in Firefox, shrinking my page to unreadable type. Applying more or less pressure affects the scrolling speed. Press with two fingertips and drag slowly, and you can scroll continuously up or down. Still, I liked pressing on selected text or a browser tab and dragging it with one finger, though I sometimes ran out of dragging room on its four-inch wide surface. It took me a few days to become fluent with the ForcePad, and it needs a little tweaking. The EliteBook Folio is impressively thin, but it’s not the lightest 14-inch laptop. If you’ve used the pressure-sensitive trackpoint that’s embedded in some notebook keyboards, you have the idea. Instead of tapping to make selections, activate commands, call up a menu, and so on, you simply apply a little more pressure with your fingertip. It functions the same as any other capacitive trackpad to control the cursor: You simply drag your fingertip across its surface.īut the ForcePad also recognizes the degree of pressure you apply to it. Along with its usual “lighter, slimmer, yada-yada” pitch, HP told me the Synaptics ForcePad trackpad on this Folio is one of its most noteworthy upgrades.
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